Is cheerleading success due to mental or physical factors?
At a recent cheerleading coaches event, I posed the following question: What percentage of athletic success do you think can be attributed to physical/technical attributes and how much to mental/emotional factors?
I will ask you, dear reader, the same question:
How much is due to physical/technical attributes? __________%
How much is due to mental/emotional factors? _____________%
If you’re like most people, including the coaches I surveyed, you will say that at least 50% of success is due to mental/emotional factors. In fact, this is consistent with sport psychology research that shows that anywhere from 50 to 90% of success in sports is attributed to mental factors.
Here is the next question. If you believe that at least 50% of success in cheerleading is due to mental/emotional factors, how much time do you spend helping your athletes with mental game basics? Do you have a specific and comprehensive mental game training program?
Again, if you are like most of the coaches I asked, the answer is “very little or no time.”
Hmmmm…interesting, don’t you think? Everyone believes that the mental game is a hugely important part of athletic success yet no one or hardly anyone incorporates mental game training in their work!
I think there are several reasons why this is the case: First, most coaches have never really considered this question. Second, many coaches believe there is no time to add anything else to an already busy schedule. Third, coaches are unsure what a mental game program would look like. All understandable.
Actually, it doesn’t have to take much time at all to integrate mental game training into a practice schedule. I’ll be writing more about this over the next week so stay tuned for more!
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Tags: cheerleader, cheerleaders, Cheerleading, mental game, sport psychology